The article is right a number of mental health issues have 'doesn't do what they are told' as a symptom. Hell at one point a Woman speaking out of turn was considered a sign of mental illness. It continues to this day with conservatives editing the DSM-V labeling gender identity disorders a mental illness because they refuse to conform.

Ayn is totally right too, everyone hates Libertarians because they are just so awesome and can't stop telling everyone just how awesome they really are!

Depends who "you" is. If "you" believes that "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine", I'd say the evil of the mindset is pretty much limited to the vulgarity of the expression. Wouldn't you?

And if "You" is space-aliens from the planet Zeist out to eat your wriggly bits, then it is a different story again.

What if "you" actually turns out to be the entire rest of the country, and what if they are looking for democratically decided taxes, levied in a republic you could leave any time you wanted?

Another thing: why do libertarians never, ever vote with their feet? Every second one keeps telling me this is what people will do if they don't like places in the libertarian wonderland, but these guys somehow all stay put despite being repeatedly brutalised by the class-warfare of taxes perpetrated by their power-hungry governments.

On a side note: I know a number of trans people, all of whom seem to agree that gender identity issues ought to be treated as a serious disorder. They just generally feel that it should be treated as a body-type disorder, not a brain disorder.

__________________Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it openSee me / and if my face becomes sincere / bewareHold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me togetherSave me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn

It continues to this day with conservatives editing the DSM-V labeling gender identity disorders a mental illness because they refuse to conform.

and the majority of the rule-loving people on this forum don't work to get people to conform to what they want? but of course- your side is better, so it's not the same. i've heard that before, somewhere...over there. look at all lawyers or protesters you find here, willing to make sure other people see things their way...fighting the man by being one. you might be thinking you're all enlightened for having your free forum, but all you ever talk about or seem to be inspired by are people you find stupid. it seems to me you freethinkers aren't really that...free

trust me- most people here aren't insane and not even remotely anti-authoritarian. most of you are completely normal in how you behave. there is no chance the system will seek to lock you away. it needs your support. nobody here says anything unique, but only offer a side to the same old arguments. the article should make you feel safe and sane!! and it does!!!

this place is bizarro brokeback mountain...just a bunch femmes acting like straight men.

It continues to this day with conservatives editing the DSM-V labeling gender identity disorders a mental illness because they refuse to conform.

and the majority of the rule-loving people on this forum don't work to get people to conform to what they want?

Which ones are the rule-lovers, again? I recall a certain Canuck who really preferred that gays just act straight, and stop waving around flags, because that's like Nazis. Plus marriage is really about kids, so what is their problem, anyway, other than not conforming?

look at all lawyers or protesters you find here, willing to make sure other people see things their way...fighting the man by being one.

How are they "making sure"?

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Originally Posted by ITSOZAZ

you might be thinking you're all enlightened for having your free forum,

Get out of my mind! I was also thinking about a big turnip.

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Originally Posted by ITSOZAZ

but all you ever talk about or seem to be inspired by are people you find stupid. it seems to me you freethinkers aren't really that...free

You're the most inspiring. Also, what does a forum of true freethinkers look like, ITSOH?

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Originally Posted by ITSOZAZ

trust me-

Why?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ITSOZAZ

most people here aren't insane and not even remotely anti-authoritarian. most of you are completely normal in how you behave. there is no chance the system will seek to lock you away. it needs your support. nobody here says anything unique, but only offer a side to the same old arguments. the article should make you feel safe and sane!! and it does!!!

Way outside the box, bro. I can totally respect your position as an outsider working an outsider job in television, raising a passel of outsider kids, smoking some outsider pot, riding an outsider bicycle, paying outsider rent. You have definitely not bought in! And I respect your freedom to be a complaining moron that reproduces. I'm setting aside $5 Ron Paul dollars for the In The Service of All Sentient Life Please Get A Vasectomy Fund.

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Originally Posted by ITSOZAZ

this place is bizarro brokeback mountain...just a bunch femmes acting like straight men.

That's mighty charitable, outsider. I like that you call 'em like you see 'em. You know, like protesters:

Keep in mind, at least one subset of "libertarians" is people who are themselves inclined to be generous, and who simply assume that, if the government weren't taking all this money to pay for social programs, people would do it individually with a lot less bureaucratic overhead. That was my assumption for a long time; I was genuinely surprised to find that most people who can consistently feed themselves don't usually have at least one or two freeloaders that they're covering for. I mean, why wouldn't you?

Answer: Because other people are not all like me.

I recently spent the night at a friend of my parents who has a very large house and is an extreme libertarian (and he likes to argue). But he is pretty generous. He probably is assuming that other people are equally generous.

A couple highlights from his conversation with me:

His basic principle is that the only reason to use aggression is for self-defense. Of course, "self" here is defined as including your possessions, a little trick they like to slip in.

My response was, of course, to point out that this is not the usual definition of self-defense, and that government-enforced property rights are as much of an unnatural state of affairs as government-enforced taxation and programs. I pointed out that property rights are not/have not been universally recognized by human societies, in particular land ownership. He kept on wanting to deflect that land ownership was a red herring. In his mind his libertarian-free market philosophy works equally well in a society without land ownership, I suppose, even though the ownership of most raw resources originates through owning the land they were taken from.

Anyway, I was trying to get him to admit that property rights shouldn't be considered absolute. He didn't want to consider "hypotheticals" at first (I can understand why), but I got him to respond. The hypothetical was to suppose that a single man managed, through no illegal means (or "un-libertarian" means, you could say) to own basically the entire world. Should the rest of the world respect and enforce his property rights, even if he was using them to be oppressive towards everyone else?

He said as long as he acquired his property properly, he should be able to use it as he wished.

Of course, the notion that this man would be no better than the "tyrannical" governments he opposes didn't cross his mind. If there were governmental forces of some sort enforcing his property rights, he would essentially be a monarch. He claimed that this was different, since his ownership would end with his death (unlike the government). But since he supports untaxed inheritance, that doesn't quite hold.

Other fun facts:

Global warming is hoax perpetrated for personal enrichment and because liberals and environmentalists want more control over your life. Look at how rich Al Gore has gotten! QED. His sources about global warming (such as the Cato Institute) are unbiased, oil companies have no vested interest in what the science says about it, there is no scientific consensus and my sources are all liars or ignorant, and he's soooo much more well-read than me, he doesn't have time to go over all the details, but trust him, he's right and I'm wrong.

In a similar vein, I don't have as much life experience as him, so like he was at my age I'm a liberal. And other variations on calling me an ignorant youth. Oh yeah, and I was brainwashed by the universities (when I pointed out that most of my economics knowledge has been through independent reading, that somehow makes me more brainwashed on the subject).

The crime rate in the US has not been lowering over the past couple decades, and the sources that say it has been are all liberal lies.

He also doesn't believe in evolution (although he doesn't believe in Creationism either). A welcome opportunity for me to condescendingly (and I'm quite sure, accurately) assure him that I have read far more on the subject than he has.

I think you have a poor definition of what constitutes authoritarian political systems, and paint all with the same brush- the very thing you are complaining about in regards to how you see others viewing libertarians.
Conservatives don't hate libertarians- they actually pander to them, but only when it comes to promoting deregulation, reducing or eliminating taxes, and limited government. Liberals, social democrats, socialists, and communists- all collectivist to some degree- dislike libertarians because libertarians tend towards agressive individualism- though those social positions do require acknowledgement of aspects of individualism as well. Environmentalists dislike deregulation and ceding of power to the markets as the ultimate authority in libertarian economic models, since there is no evidence that unregulated markets will protect or ensure the environment for future generations. Leftist anarchists are actually anti-authoritarian, if collectivist, and I have no idea why you would have them on your list.

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Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian

Why people call us "crazy" "autistic" "sociopath" just because we don't agree with their regressive policies and stealing from Paul to pay Peter?

You self identify as an anarcho-capitalist, and a few minutes with a search engine can yield plenty of thoughtful and detailed critiques of anarcho-capitalism, and libertarianism. And what you don't agree with: taxes, government, laws, and state power- these are not minor aspects of society, but rather central pillars of how almost every society is constructed. In place of all these things you put "free market capitalism"- unburdened by regulation of any kind, guided by enlightened self interest- that is, the acquisition of personal property and wealth. What happens to the poor, the infirm, the have nots? What happens to the people who live downstream from the widget factory? What happens to enforcement of civil rights, access to medicine, access to education? What happens to fire departments, roads, libraries? In the anarcho-capitalist world, you get a solid "good luck with that," and maybe a lecture on bootstrap levitation.

So when people have negative responses to such a proposal, is it really so surprising?

I get the impression that there are a lot of Libertarians in the Northwest. Is that a false impression,

No. Impression is correct.

Quote:

and if not, why so many?

Reasons:

1. high percentage of Microsoftees who went from private high school gifted programs right into private/top20/etc colleges and then went right into Microsoft as their first and only job. "Obviously the market values my skills more than it does yours. Sorry, you suck. But as long as you're up, mind refreshing my drink?" *

* actually that reasoning worked until about 1998, when offshoring put a lot of those jobs in China, India, Moldova, the Czech Republic, etc. This was followed by weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth - and attempts to fight "foreign offshoring".

Good god, people. AML is not a libertarian. He's barely a lolbertarian! His parents are (supposedly) rich and he hasn't worked a single day in his life (and probably never will) because of that. What makes him a "libertarian" is the fear that if inheritance taxes are getting too high in Italy he'll actually have to work one day. And that's all there is to it.